Here Is the Magnificence of One World Trade Center — All 1,776 Feet of It

Friday morning, after a week-and-a-half delay due to bad weather — and many more delays before that — the spire on top of One World Trade Center was permanently installed, enabling the magnificent building to achieve its full height and scrape 1,776 feet of sky. That's pretty tall — the tallest building in the Western hemisphere, and a lot of yous — but it's really something to look at. Indeed, Friday morning was a stunner in New York, allowing everyone to fully appreciate the majesty of engineering and the scale of a city even more than the symbolism and emotion it's taken to build back up downtown Manhattan.

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NBC's Anne Thompson had one of the best views (pictured above), from across the Hudson River in New Jersey, on Twitter during the Today show's coverage of the topping-out. From across the East River, in Long Island City in Queens (around midtown Manhattan), paidContent's Rafat Ali had another angle:

Here's a helicopter's view of the building: 

And here's another angle from Jersey City: 

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And one with One World Trade towering over the rest of Wall Street: 

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And here's a photo from May 2, showing the final two pieces of the spire being installed: 

And here's to all the good people who made this possible: 

Over at the WTC website, there's a pretty nifty time-lapse of the construction. One World Trade won't open for business until 2014, when Anna Wintour and the rest of Condé Nast move in.

As we've note, there's still debate on this tower actually being the tallest building in the U.S. and the third tallest in the world — it all has to do with whether the spire counts. But for Friday, for New York, for America, we're just going to forget about all that and enjoy the view.